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Oh yeah, the iPhone 4S is such a flop. Obviously, the lack of a new teardrop form factor is totally sales and Apple should recant from their heathen ways and do

by swombat 15y ago

Oh yeah, the iPhone 4S is such a flop. Obviously, the lack of a new teardrop form factor is totally sales and Apple should recant from their heathen ways and do the smart thing, like the other mobile phone manufacturers. One wonders where Technology mags find all these seemingly countless analysts who deride every iPhone (or at least are unimpressed)...

nextparadigms 15y ago
Even if the iPhone 4S would've been a worse phone than iPhone 4, they would've still sold at least a million units in first weekend. I think everyone knows that. But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. The 3GS was already persuasive evidence of this pattern, though.
- talmand 15y ago
  Apple's been doing that for a while now. In fact, that's a common release pattern for several companies in the electronics industry. In a way, you could say the iPhone 4S is just an original iPhone with some spec upgrades.
- johnthedebs 15y ago
  Even if the iPhone 4S would've been a worse phone than iPhone 4, they would've still sold at least a million units in first weekend. I think everyone knows that. No, I don't think everyone knows that. If we learned anything from the past few Apple product launches, it's that customers aren't shy about complaining even if they aren't completely sure what they're complaining about. But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. It is okay. The economics behind producing this many millions of a devices doesn't allow them to change the design every single year without jacking up the price. And for what? A "tick tock" schedule, like the one Intel has adopted, makes tons of sense for Apple too. You just can't completely rethink a product design every year once it's matured.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    But that will be bad for customers. You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. Apple is making billions in profits per quarter, and you're saying it would be bad for them to make it more often than 2 years? Then why not 3 years to save even more money? And if you don't think they needed to change the design of the phone this time, just take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=elKxgsrJFhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e... No wonder nobody wanted to "copy" its design and build. It's so weak, even some plastic phones are more solid than it.
    - froo 15y ago
      > But that will be bad for customers. You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. Similarly, you don't see other manufacturers producing phones that they intend to still thoroughly support in a couple years time, which is why there is so much fragmentation in the Android ecosystem. I think this is a key thing in Apple's market strategy across the board - you're not just buying hardware that will be out of date in 6 months time, you're purchasing a utility which will be more or less current for a couple years to come (like what we've seen in Macs). I think its a smart move. It builds trust with the user base.
    - rsynnott 15y ago
      > You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. See the Motorola Droid 2 and 3, and the HTC Wildfire S and Desire S. And Apple's own 3GS. Essentially the same physical design as their predecessors, but faster. Actually, Samsung is perhaps the only major phone manufacturer who _doesn't_ do this; most of their phones do change reasonably dramatically on every revision.
- funkah 15y ago
  Why wouldn't that be OK? I like when they take a product of theirs that is already very good and refine it in a bunch of small ways. All those little refinements add up. This phone really is a beautiful piece of technology.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  The iPhone 3G barely had any improvement beyond the antenna and the 3GS was widely derided for being little more than "a faster 3G". The iPhone 4 was the exception to the rule of incremental hardware improvements. It really is kind of remarkable how subtle the changes have been with iOS and the iPhone. A front shot of an iPhone on its home screen would show nothing new to someone in 2007 using the first iPhone (aside from the resolution increase). But I'd argue that what seems like a liability to industry-watchers and tech enthusiasts is a profound strength for everyone else - consistency and familiarity trump novelty.
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    The 3G had 3G. Edge/GPRS -> 3G data speeds is a massive improvement on it's own.
- adhipg 15y ago
  The MacBook Pro has essentially been the same 'MacBook Pro' for quite a while now - albeit with spec upgrades every now and then. It still sells. Why change the design of a product if that design still works? After all, how many radically different washing machine models have you seen in the last ten or fifteen years?
- rsynnott 15y ago
  > But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. You mean like the 3GS? Or, in Android-land, the Droid 2, Droid 3, Atrix 2, HTC Desire/Wildfire S etc.? It's hardly that strange a thing to do. Keep the design for a year, make the device enormously faster. This is par for the course in computers, and becoming increasingly common on the mobile market.
talmand 15y ago
I didn't understand that attitude either. The iPhone 4S seemed a fairly good upgrade to the iPhone 4 which follows Apple's release pattern. Seems to me some people let the rumors of an iPhone5 cloud their judgement. After all, we've known there would be a 4S for a while now. It's just the people who should know better discounted it as a "cheap version" because they were expecting the iPhone 5.
- Steko 15y ago
  I think people are overplaying what was actually disappointing to a lot of watchers. Everyone I know thinks the 4S is awesome. What disappointed a lot of people is they expected a new iphone lite to compete with android at the bottom of the market. When you think about it though, they sell a $700 phone as their main product, they aren't going to cannibalize it with a $150 phone. It's also likely they can't make a better new phone then the 3GS cheaper then the 3GS due to the scale they've built. So they're going to ride the 3GS to 30 and 40 million units a quarter.
  - tomkarlo 15y ago
    "It's also likely they can't make a better new phone then the 3GS cheaper then the 3GS due to the scale they've built. So they're going to ride the 3GS to 30 and 40 million units a quarter." Exactly. Why spend design resources and marketing resources on building a "low-end" phone when they already have proven (and popular) models that satisfy that demand? Presumably, they've also optimized the production lines, etc for those units to minimize costs and waste. The $0 (w/ contract) iPhone 3GS is still a great phone for people who don't care about adding apps. (And if you're not already on an iPhone or Android at this point, you probably don't. The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget - and nobody will even know you're not using the latest design (at least for a year.)
    - rsynnott 15y ago
      > The $0 (w/ contract) iPhone 3GS is still a great phone for people who don't care about adding apps. Or, er, even for people who do. Almost all iPhone apps work fine in the 3GS. > The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget You get iOS 5 with the 3GS. You may be thinking of the 3G (from 2008).
mbesto 15y ago
I really think the success of 4S is due to 2 things: 1. Many iPhone 3G/3GS users never upgraded to 4. This is their chance. 2. iOS5 has many compelling features. Us techies forget that the average joe doesn't really understand upgrades, versioning, etc. Phones are sold as both a hardware and software solution and so many of the iOS5 features are inherently see as being a feature of 4S and not just a feature of any iOS device. Many of the tech blogs are looking at a technology aspect (RAM oh my!) and not towards how the common man thinks and acts.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  Analysts should understand that most 3GS users didn't upgrade though. Most people don't replace a bit of hardware costing several hundred dollars / pounds (plus associated contract costs potentially) after 12 months. The same will be true of the Samsung Galaxy S2 - those users won't be queuing up to replace it after 12 months (or if they are it's a bad sign rather than a good one). You're not wrong about it as a factor, just saying that analysts should get this and figure it in.
  - jarcoal 15y ago
    I don't know about most, but I think many are upgrading. I've had mine for over two years now and preordered the 4S.
  - JonLim 15y ago
    3GS users have waited more than 12 months. I haven't upgraded yet, but that's because I wanted to wait for the lines to die before I decided on what I wanted to get. The 4S is looking mighty tempting though, and I was going to get it unlocked. (Because I hate being locked to three year contracts, stupid Canada.)
    - emp 15y ago
      I did what you are contemplating - got an unlocked 4S after having my 3GS for 2 1/2 years. You won't be disappointed, the 4S is so much faster at everything. And Siri is amazing. The only downside is that I have started looking for the 'Siri button' on my iMac.
cooldeal 15y ago
Did analysts predict that iPhone sales would completely crash and burn because of the lack of a redesigned iPhone? If Apple had indeed made a new form factor, would the sales have been 4 million or do you think they would be more than that? How much more?
- tptacek 15y ago
  The iPhone 4S appears to be outselling the iPhone 4, which was a ground-up redesign of the iPhone, and (IIRC) Apple's most successful product introduction ever. They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?" These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid.
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    >The iPhone 4S appears to be outselling the iPhone 4, which was a ground-up redesign of the iPhone, and (IIRC) Apple's most successful product introduction ever. The market is definitely bigger, not to mention Verizon and Sprint getting the iPhone, so the number aren't directly comparable. >They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?" And that question would still be valid. I was basing my question on my personal experience that many of my friends with a 3GS immediately jumped on the iPhone 4 regardless of contracts, but aren't that interested into moving to the 4S. I know that's just an anecdote, maybe others can share theirs. >These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid. Maybe I missed some of the articles, but the ones I read stated that the release was somewhat disappointing but the phone will still sell a lot. Apple has built a reputation for suddenly unveiling groundbreaking design and hardware and this lead to people expecting(wrongly or rightly) them to repeat it.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      If you think it's reasonable to wonder whether an even better case design might allow Apple to sell more than fifty million phones in one week, there's not much room for productive conversation between you & I.
lwhi 15y ago
The 'S' models is a clever idea; allow late adopters to catch up, provide a sight boost to the spec to keep the phone competitive. People who upgrade late, need to feel like they're upgrading to a phone that's competitive with other new releases .. the iPhone 4S provides that feeling. I don't think it's revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.
- epo 15y ago
  Who said it was revolutionary? To quote myself from another post on this page "The missed expectations were held by fanboy contributors to MacRumors and the equally witless anti-fanboys (fandroids for the most part) who chimed in with "Ha! No new case after 18 months? Lame! Fail!""
  - lwhi 15y ago
    I'm simply saying I don't think it's revolutionary.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
azulum 15y ago
one thing that the press doesn't understand (but apple does, especially with its CEO being one of the best operations guys) is that ramping up production takes time. using the same design helps meet the demand for the iphone 4S—they've been doing the CDMA iphone 4 for almost a year now. as for the rumors, i think that they are real devices—i actually expected a 3G ipod touch with a bigger screen—but maybe it is a possible design for the iphone 5. because we don't see the lead times from apple like we see from other electronics companies doesn't mean they aren't there. the retina display ipad 2, the iphone 5, these things surely exist in some capacity as they figure out not just how to make them, but how to make enough of them to meet demand. i think apple is finding it much more difficult to keep new devices secret and because of the short time between announcement and delivery with increased production ramp-ups and internal lead times, apple seems to be experiencing and anti-osbourne effect—the rumors of the device after the next device surfacing and disappointing all of those who have come to expect so much from apple.

by swombat 15y ago

nextparadigms 15y ago

Even if the iPhone 4S would've been a worse phone than iPhone 4, they would've still sold at least a million units in first weekend. I think everyone knows that. But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year.

danilocampos 15y ago
> But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. The 3GS was already persuasive evidence of this pattern, though.
talmand 15y ago
Apple's been doing that for a while now. In fact, that's a common release pattern for several companies in the electronics industry. In a way, you could say the iPhone 4S is just an original iPhone with some spec upgrades.
johnthedebs 15y ago
Even if the iPhone 4S would've been a worse phone than iPhone 4, they would've still sold at least a million units in first weekend. I think everyone knows that. No, I don't think everyone knows that. If we learned anything from the past few Apple product launches, it's that customers aren't shy about complaining even if they aren't completely sure what they're complaining about. But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. It is okay. The economics behind producing this many millions of a devices doesn't allow them to change the design every single year without jacking up the price. And for what? A "tick tock" schedule, like the one Intel has adopted, makes tons of sense for Apple too. You just can't completely rethink a product design every year once it's matured.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  But that will be bad for customers. You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. Apple is making billions in profits per quarter, and you're saying it would be bad for them to make it more often than 2 years? Then why not 3 years to save even more money? And if you don't think they needed to change the design of the phone this time, just take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=elKxgsrJFhw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e... No wonder nobody wanted to "copy" its design and build. It's so weak, even some plastic phones are more solid than it.
  - froo 15y ago
    > But that will be bad for customers. You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. Similarly, you don't see other manufacturers producing phones that they intend to still thoroughly support in a couple years time, which is why there is so much fragmentation in the Android ecosystem. I think this is a key thing in Apple's market strategy across the board - you're not just buying hardware that will be out of date in 6 months time, you're purchasing a utility which will be more or less current for a couple years to come (like what we've seen in Macs). I think its a smart move. It builds trust with the user base.
  - rsynnott 15y ago
    > You don't see the other manufacturers keeping the same phone for 2 years. See the Motorola Droid 2 and 3, and the HTC Wildfire S and Desire S. And Apple's own 3GS. Essentially the same physical design as their predecessors, but faster. Actually, Samsung is perhaps the only major phone manufacturer who _doesn't_ do this; most of their phones do change reasonably dramatically on every revision.
funkah 15y ago
Why wouldn't that be OK? I like when they take a product of theirs that is already very good and refine it in a bunch of small ways. All those little refinements add up. This phone really is a beautiful piece of technology.
saturdaysaint 15y ago
The iPhone 3G barely had any improvement beyond the antenna and the 3GS was widely derided for being little more than "a faster 3G". The iPhone 4 was the exception to the rule of incremental hardware improvements. It really is kind of remarkable how subtle the changes have been with iOS and the iPhone. A front shot of an iPhone on its home screen would show nothing new to someone in 2007 using the first iPhone (aside from the resolution increase). But I'd argue that what seems like a liability to industry-watchers and tech enthusiasts is a profound strength for everyone else - consistency and familiarity trump novelty.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  The 3G had 3G. Edge/GPRS -> 3G data speeds is a massive improvement on it's own.
adhipg 15y ago
The MacBook Pro has essentially been the same 'MacBook Pro' for quite a while now - albeit with spec upgrades every now and then. It still sells. Why change the design of a product if that design still works? After all, how many radically different washing machine models have you seen in the last ten or fifteen years?
rsynnott 15y ago
> But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year. You mean like the 3GS? Or, in Android-land, the Droid 2, Droid 3, Atrix 2, HTC Desire/Wildfire S etc.? It's hardly that strange a thing to do. Keep the design for a year, make the device enormously faster. This is par for the course in computers, and becoming increasingly common on the mobile market.

talmand 15y ago

I didn't understand that attitude either. The iPhone 4S seemed a fairly good upgrade to the iPhone 4 which follows Apple's release pattern. Seems to me some people let the rumors of an iPhone5 cloud their judgement. After all, we've known there would be a 4S for a while now. It's just the people who should know better discounted it as a "cheap version" because they were expecting the iPhone 5.

Steko 15y ago
I think people are overplaying what was actually disappointing to a lot of watchers. Everyone I know thinks the 4S is awesome. What disappointed a lot of people is they expected a new iphone lite to compete with android at the bottom of the market. When you think about it though, they sell a $700 phone as their main product, they aren't going to cannibalize it with a $150 phone. It's also likely they can't make a better new phone then the 3GS cheaper then the 3GS due to the scale they've built. So they're going to ride the 3GS to 30 and 40 million units a quarter.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  "It's also likely they can't make a better new phone then the 3GS cheaper then the 3GS due to the scale they've built. So they're going to ride the 3GS to 30 and 40 million units a quarter." Exactly. Why spend design resources and marketing resources on building a "low-end" phone when they already have proven (and popular) models that satisfy that demand? Presumably, they've also optimized the production lines, etc for those units to minimize costs and waste. The $0 (w/ contract) iPhone 3GS is still a great phone for people who don't care about adding apps. (And if you're not already on an iPhone or Android at this point, you probably don't. The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget - and nobody will even know you're not using the latest design (at least for a year.)
  - rsynnott 15y ago
    > The $0 (w/ contract) iPhone 3GS is still a great phone for people who don't care about adding apps. Or, er, even for people who do. Almost all iPhone apps work fine in the 3GS. > The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget You get iOS 5 with the 3GS. You may be thinking of the 3G (from 2008).

mbesto 15y ago

I really think the success of 4S is due to 2 things: 1. Many iPhone 3G/3GS users never upgraded to 4. This is their chance. 2. iOS5 has many compelling features. Us techies forget that the average joe doesn't really understand upgrades, versioning, etc. Phones are sold as both a hardware and software solution and so many of the iOS5 features are inherently see as being a feature of 4S and not just a feature of any iOS device. Many of the tech blogs are looking at a technology aspect (RAM oh my!) and not towards how the common man thinks and acts.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
Analysts should understand that most 3GS users didn't upgrade though. Most people don't replace a bit of hardware costing several hundred dollars / pounds (plus associated contract costs potentially) after 12 months. The same will be true of the Samsung Galaxy S2 - those users won't be queuing up to replace it after 12 months (or if they are it's a bad sign rather than a good one). You're not wrong about it as a factor, just saying that analysts should get this and figure it in.
- jarcoal 15y ago
  I don't know about most, but I think many are upgrading. I've had mine for over two years now and preordered the 4S.
- JonLim 15y ago
  3GS users have waited more than 12 months. I haven't upgraded yet, but that's because I wanted to wait for the lines to die before I decided on what I wanted to get. The 4S is looking mighty tempting though, and I was going to get it unlocked. (Because I hate being locked to three year contracts, stupid Canada.)
  - emp 15y ago
    I did what you are contemplating - got an unlocked 4S after having my 3GS for 2 1/2 years. You won't be disappointed, the 4S is so much faster at everything. And Siri is amazing. The only downside is that I have started looking for the 'Siri button' on my iMac.

cooldeal 15y ago

Did analysts predict that iPhone sales would completely crash and burn because of the lack of a redesigned iPhone? If Apple had indeed made a new form factor, would the sales have been 4 million or do you think they would be more than that? How much more?

tptacek 15y ago
The iPhone 4S appears to be outselling the iPhone 4, which was a ground-up redesign of the iPhone, and (IIRC) Apple's most successful product introduction ever. They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?" These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid.
- cooldeal 15y ago
  >The iPhone 4S appears to be outselling the iPhone 4, which was a ground-up redesign of the iPhone, and (IIRC) Apple's most successful product introduction ever. The market is definitely bigger, not to mention Verizon and Sprint getting the iPhone, so the number aren't directly comparable. >They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?" And that question would still be valid. I was basing my question on my personal experience that many of my friends with a 3GS immediately jumped on the iPhone 4 regardless of contracts, but aren't that interested into moving to the 4S. I know that's just an anecdote, maybe others can share theirs. >These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid. Maybe I missed some of the articles, but the ones I read stated that the release was somewhat disappointing but the phone will still sell a lot. Apple has built a reputation for suddenly unveiling groundbreaking design and hardware and this lead to people expecting(wrongly or rightly) them to repeat it.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    If you think it's reasonable to wonder whether an even better case design might allow Apple to sell more than fifty million phones in one week, there's not much room for productive conversation between you & I.

lwhi 15y ago

The 'S' models is a clever idea; allow late adopters to catch up, provide a sight boost to the spec to keep the phone competitive. People who upgrade late, need to feel like they're upgrading to a phone that's competitive with other new releases .. the iPhone 4S provides that feeling. I don't think it's revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.

epo 15y ago
Who said it was revolutionary? To quote myself from another post on this page "The missed expectations were held by fanboy contributors to MacRumors and the equally witless anti-fanboys (fandroids for the most part) who chimed in with "Ha! No new case after 18 months? Lame! Fail!""
- lwhi 15y ago
  I'm simply saying I don't think it's revolutionary.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

azulum 15y ago

one thing that the press doesn't understand (but apple does, especially with its CEO being one of the best operations guys) is that ramping up production takes time. using the same design helps meet the demand for the iphone 4S—they've been doing the CDMA iphone 4 for almost a year now. as for the rumors, i think that they are real devices—i actually expected a 3G ipod touch with a bigger screen—but maybe it is a possible design for the iphone 5. because we don't see the lead times from apple like we see from other electronics companies doesn't mean they aren't there. the retina display ipad 2, the iphone 5, these things surely exist in some capacity as they figure out not just how to make them, but how to make enough of them to meet demand. i think apple is finding it much more difficult to keep new devices secret and because of the short time between announcement and delivery with increased production ramp-ups and internal lead times, apple seems to be experiencing and anti-osbourne effect—the rumors of the device after the next device surfacing and disappointing all of those who have come to expect so much from apple.